A case that gripped Hunterdon County for years continues to draw national attention because of charges that there are parallels in the Gov. Chris Christie administration between "Bridgegate" and the firing of a county assistant prosecutor.

Ben Barlyn was fired, he has asserted repeatedly, after objecting publicly at a department meeting to the dismissal, three-and-a-half years ago, of 43 counts of official misconduct and other crimes that had been filed by his office against then-Hunterdon County Sheriff Deborah Trout, then-undersheriff Michael Russo and a then-Sheriff's Office investigator, John Falat Jr.

Yesterday evening, Jan. 30, he appeared with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, following an 11-minute clip that included a recap of a 172-page state Commission of Investigation report that slammed how the Warren County SPCA had evolved to become an organization "above the law." Maddow's report relied extensively on reporting done by the Hunterdon County Democrat, including its timeline of former Hunterdon County Sherrif Deborah Trout's tenure and its aftermath.

MSNBC calls the story, "the strange, scandalous story of the dissolution of an investigation into apparent corruption in a New Jersey sheriff’s office."